Many products are a complex combination of raw materials and/or components manufactured from a variety of sources. Supply chains (e.g., materials suppliers, component suppliers, assembly suppliers, integrators, and system suppliers) are commonly used to leverage multiple designs, processes and manufacturing specializations to deliver reliable and cost effective products to the global marketplace.
For example, in the automotive industry, a vehicle is comprised of major components (e.g., drive train, chassis, body, interior, etc.) produced by manufacturers with a high degree of expertise in integration. These major systems are, in turn, comprised of sub-systems, assemblies and components (e.g., gears, pistons, engine blocks, seats, etc.) produced by various manufacturers with expertise in transforming materials into parts. The materials (e.g., steel, magnesium, cloth, wire, glass, paint, etc.) are produced by manufacturers with expertise in the chemistry, metallurgy, and other material sciences required to achieve performance and manufacturing properties desired for the product.
A significant amount of the cost to produce any product is determined in the design phase. During the design phase of the product lifecycle, design engineers from multiple sources determine the specific construction of the product to meet desired specifications. Quality engineers define the measures and controls to be used to ensure product quality. Process and/or manufacturing engineers design the process flow, equipment, and measurement devices to be used in the manufacturing process to produce a sufficient quantity of high quality product to meet demand.
In many supply chains, these activities cross organizational boundaries between customer and suppliers. The supplier is commonly responsible for the design of the product and its reliability, performance, safety, and warranty cost. The customer commonly provides specifications, timing requirements, production volume targets, and oversight of the design and development processes.
FIG. 1A illustrates the advanced product quality planning (“APQP”) process used in the automotive industry to control the design and development phase for part development. As used on this FIG. 1A, the steps indicated by the numerals in circles have the following meaning:                1. Receipt        2. Forward to Quality Control        3. Review for accuracy and content (forwarded to Quality Control, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Purchasing)        4. Approval by all appropriate departments        5. If in hard copy format at receipt, documents are scanned into electronic format        6. Reformat to meet standard format        7. Documents merged together        8. Copies made for departmental use        9. Storage in repository via hard copy warehouse, CD-ROM diskette, desktop hard drive, external database, or network server for example        10. SubmittalIn this embodiment, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is akin to the manufacturer of end product, such as an automobile. The Tier 1 party is the manufacturer of a major system, and the Tier 2 party contributes a component or material to the major system of the Tier 1 party.        
A requirement of the industry standard known as QS-9000, APQP is mandated throughout the automotive industry as a standard method for communicating information, synchronizing activities, and approving parts for production and commerce in the supply chain. As a paper-based system, APQP is a very time consuming and labor intensive activity.
To assist in understanding the APQP process, below is a list of steps taken in the process and tasks involved in such steps. The following list of steps and tasks are excerpts taken from GM Global APQP, Advanced Product Quality Planning, General Motors Corporation, GM 1927, June 1999, and defines General Motors Corporation's global common APQP requirements necessary to develop and implement an APQP process for a product or service.